The DOSE

So there are talks and there are talks… and then there’s my family. Modest gentle folks would surely get a heart attack after an hour with them in full throttle, and its even worse than Him-mesh Reshammiyyaa-yaa doing a moviee with two ‘e’s and even more songs that can be categorized under ‘u’ with a nasal twang.

In fact, I sometimes wonder why I am with them. I mean, they are rude, arrogant, mentally and emotionally challenged, exceptionally blunt, vengeful and filled with deceit, and crude about most of the things in life and all in all, pains in the butt cheeks.

Oh, that's me.

Part of the time, of course. When I am not being an overly sensitive diva-dolly about something or not moaning about my life, or being agony aunty to my near and dear ones.

So for the last four days I am receiving little doses. I would like to share them and add to your blog-reading pain.

Chapter One

Sister arrives home, exceptionally excited.

Panu takes heed. The fifth bite to the five-star is wisely not made, and is carefully tucked away behind the pile of books she was attempting to read but never really got further than the flyleaf.

N.B. transcreation from Bengali by Panu.

Meghna (enter room door): DIDI!! (Sister!!)

Oh, a small pause. Meghna is 12 years of age.

Panu (cautiously covering leftover five star with the Xerox on Eliot): Ki? (What?)

Meghna (Excitement pours round her vein like bolts of blue lightning): Tui janish sex mane ki? (Do you know what sex means?)

Panu (Gasp! Sacrilege! Gasp! Or according to fish interpreted by Peep, Vulva! Labia!) : Um-

Meghna (know she is on to something prick-y, so becomes real insistent): Janish kina bol??

Panu (still struggling with her 23 year old understanding of life and everything and her sister’s mental status for grasping the major equation and skipping details): Mane—er… (Meaning, er…)

Meghna (wide-eyed with ecstatic energy that courses through her veins every time she lets her poor sister suffer a trick question): Janish na to? (You don’t know, right?)

Panu (at this point chooses the wisest course and gives up): Na, mane…(no, I mean…)

Meghna: Tui kichhu janish na. Sex mane holo f*cking. (You don’t know anything. Sex means the abbreviation for Fornicating Under the Consent of the King... you dig??)

Panu (faintly): Oh. Okay.


Chapter Two


Early morn. Very early. Like five o’clock in the morning. Panu is going to sleep after a hard night of chatting and orkutting. Yawn yawn and beddy bye… just a little formality of closing the door after the father’s left for his three-mile morning walk.

So enter parent’s bedroom to see how long will she have to stay up before the brawny beast (i.e. daddy darling) left for the fields.

Mum sleeps with cheerful disarray, legs bared artfully, her pale skin glistening like pearl under the early morning sun (yeah, yeah, I don’t have a life…). Panu stops to admire the view.

Dad enters.

Dad: Pronam koro. (Pay respect)

Panu: Er, keno? Kake? (Er, why? To whom?)

Dad (indicates the pearly skinned beauty gracing the bed): Pronam koro… tomar jonmosthan ar tomar babar kormosthan. (Pay respect to your birthplace and your father’s workplace).

Panu had NOT seen that coming so early in the morning.


Chapter Three

Mother in the room watching ATN Bangla (probably… or one of those Bangladesh-i channels). Panu sits down.

Onscreen:

Fat woman wearing violent green frump-top with carrot coloured leather-look skirt revealing her fat thighs and wobbly belly-flesh and huge 70s show sunglasses to indicate MODERN MAGI (Modern Woe on Mankind). Fire engine red high heels try to attempt some semblance of movement, but gasp here comes the Hero!

Hero enters with James Bond’s gracefulness without the grace bits hanging out, shaky head and revolving body in virulent shades of red and purple retro material. Yellow trousers and blue boots complete the ensemble together with ruffled hair gelled and colored in the front to resemble an ice-cream cone with chocolate sauce on top.

Hero enters. Kills most of the cast and crew, gets hit by a baddy (who had better dress sense than the previous two… only flaw was that golden waistcoat), kills him and falls.

Heroine (heaving bosom and Bangladeshi English accent): Ponti! Ponti!!!! PONTIIIIII!!! (calls hero’s name)

Throws herself on the hero. Hero suitably mollified and out of breath after having a 60-plus kilo woman fall on top of her lets out a groan.

Heroine (wails): PONNNTIIIII!!!

Panu wonders if the poor man has a death wish/ his body insured against unsuspected falling objects. And moreover, all that screeching is bound to make any man deaf. Wishes for a pair of earplugs for herself and the poor fashion disaster on the loose.

Hero: groan!

Heroine: PPPPONNNTIIIIII (boo hoo)… PPPPONTIIIIIII!! (gasp sob GASP) I LUUUURRRBHHH IUUUU!! I LUUUURRRVV IUUUUU!!!(GAASP!!)

Hero has miraculous recovery. Tears glisten on my mother’s eyes and she wipes them off with the back of her palm. Day saved, superman switches channel.


And here I draw the curtains.

COME AWAY, COME AWAY!

Peter Pan came into Wendy’s life and changed it… he took her away to Neverland and made sure that she never forgot the adventure.

But then Wendy had to grow up. She had to grow old. She had to remember her duties and her self.

And so she did.

But she never forgot what it was like to be gay and innocent and heartless.

Away, away… far, far away to the distant dream of forgetfulness… and then back to reality and duties.

And this too, shall pass.

Shall be a grain of sand in the infinite beach of time.

Woe is Me

Okay, so the matriarchs just shot three brand new troubles at me that goes by the common name prospective husbands at me... and gave them my cell phone number....

Damn me for going to Patna in the first place. Looks like this country is getting too little for one overweight person.

And my neck is in a brace because flu struck and I struck the steel bucket. See, theory of cause and effect at work.

And now I must leave. I am supposed to study for tomorrow's exam. Only, I haven't done a thing.

You

The mid-autumnal depression settled down on Panu’s weary soul… filled with the temporal gloom that she was habituated by the 23rd year of her life. It was always this way. It will always be this way. But it is not this way. Not this year.

Behold the madness that comes with the forbidden! Panu feels the pangs of her conscience strike her unblemished behind with guttural force, but still she stalls, still she is unable to give up the call of temptation that drags her away from her peaceful deluge.

And then she sings out in the depth of fading darkness. She sings out her fear. Her doubts. What has she done? What is she doing?

What are you doing to me?

I can’t rest I can’t work

I cant move, I cant sit still

All comes round when the time approaches

And as your voice pours in

The indescribable joy that

Infuses my very soul.

Damn you! I wish

You did not have the power

To do this to me.

To make me weak and carefree

Spilling all of myself

Right out to your waiting ears

Your taunting face

Flashes in a vision, lips

Curled into a cruel smirk

Standing, shifting right beyond me,

Watching my folly with unbidden delight.

My soul twists up in conscientious knots

But waits for your call

When you let me soar high up,

My body rocking with pleasurable pain

Of your absence.